Nicholas Kolakowski

As Apple wrestled with controversy over iOS devices storing location data, Microsoft moved to offer its own explanation for when and how its Windows Phone devices collect information on a user’s physical location. “When you allow an application or game to access your device’s location, the application or game will connect to Microsoft’s location services […]

Microsoft is using its patent portfolio to squeeze royalties from manufacturers who install Android on their mobile devices, according to a new legal filing from Barnes & Noble. The bookseller’s counterclaim to a Microsoft lawsuit, filed April 25 with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle, details a July 2010 […]

Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color now boasts some tabletlike features: an integrated email app, support for Adobe Flash Player and access to apps like Angry Birds. Does that make the device more of a challenge to Amazon’s Kindle, or to the flood of Android-based tablets hitting the market? The new features include access to 125 […]

Amazon.com has filed a counterclaim to Apple’s lawsuit over the term “app store,” which the online retailer argues is a term too generic for trademarking. Apple originally filed a lawsuit against Amazon March 18, claiming the rights to “app store” in the wake of the online retailer’s launch of an Appstore for Android. That storefront […]

Apple and Google could find themselves under additional government pressure to reveal how they collect and store location data, after Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan asked to meet with executives from both those companies to discuss privacy issues. “I want to know whether consumers have been informed of what is being tracked and stored by […]

Windows Phone 7 lags behind RIM’s BlackBerry franchise, Google Android devices, and Apple’s iOS among desired smartphones, according to new data from The Nielsen Company. That comes despite recent data suggesting that Microsoft’s latest smartphone platform is seeing some traction among third-party developers, whose apps are considered a vital part of any smartphone’s appeal. For […]

Firefox 4’s downloads stand at 104 million and counting, according to a handy download-stats Website run by Mozilla. That 100-million-downloads milestone comes a little more than a month since the browser’s March 22 launch. According to analytics firm Net Applications, Firefox’s market share stands at 21.8 percent, trailing Microsoft’s Internet Explorer franchise at 55.92 percent […]

The Apple iPad whetted consumer appetite for tablet PCs, not to mention its rivals’ interest in creating touch-screens of their very own. Advertisements for every new seven- or ten-inch device insist on talking up revolutionary or “magical” hardware or software, spinning the impression that these devices represent the bleeding edge of technology; that nothing quite […]

With Apple’s white iPhone 4 all but confirmed to hit store shelves in the near future, the attention of the seemingly inexhaustible Apple rumor mill has shifted to a new topic: the possibility of the iPhone on T-Mobile. The blog Apple Insider is reporting that Apple has already begun shipping the long-delayed white iPhone 4 […]

Barnes & Noble announced April 25 a bevy of new features for its Nook e-reader, including email and Flash support. That makes the full-color Nook as much a tablet as an e-reader, but whether that boosts the device’s competitive prospects against Amazon’s Kindle remains to be seen. Months ago, tech enthusiasts figured out how to […]

Microsoft is claiming that more than 350 million Windows 7 licenses have sold in the 18 months since the operating system’s release. Despite its push into newer areas such as smartphones and cloud computing, Microsoft still relies on legacy platforms like Windows for much of its bottom-line revenue. In an April 22 posting on The […]

‘Telautograph’ In July 1888, Elisha Gray received a U.S. patent for an electrical stylus device that captures handwriting. According to the application, this “telautograph” leverages telegraph technology to send a handwritten message between a sending and receiving station. RAND Tablet Following generalized research in the 1950s into electronic text and handwriting recognition, the RAND Corp. […]